Steven Gerrard tells Aston Villa players not to 'quit' on the season

Villa host Tottenham this evening aiming to halt a run of three straight defeats which has extinguished any hope of competing for European football.

The summer transfer window is shaping up to be vital for the club’s long-term aspirations but in the meantime Gerrard insists the current campaign can’t be allowed to fizzle out.

He said: “It is quite common if you are in this area of the league, the easy thing is to write it off and worry about next season. That can’t happen.”

“There is an end goal for where we want to get to. We are nowhere near that yet and the players have to be able to follow those standards. The big demand, the big challenge for us now is can we improve and get back to winning ways and finish the season strong?”

Gerrard’s mentor, Gerard Houllier, was the last Villa boss to achieve a top half finish when guiding them to ninth in the 2010/11 season.

“I think it would be big in the short-term,” continued Gerrard. “It is certainly not the end goal because next season, starting fresh with a full pre-season, we have two domestic cup competitions I want us to have a crack at and we want to aim higher than top-10 here, in the right time with the right decisions moving forward.

“But yes, if you’d have said to me in the first press conference with eight games to go you have the opportunity of finishing in the top-10 I would have considered it, because at the time we were 16th, two points above relegation having lost five on the spin.

“We are in an OK position now with the opportunity to finish strong and big in the top-10. I think that would be a decent base. I don’t think it would be anything to celebrate but it would be a good platform to keep building from.”